Some 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been registered in the Far North region since January. In August alone,  2,217 were recorded in the Mokolo district of the Mayo Tsanaga division. The figures are disclosed by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in a recent report. The source explains that these population movements are the result of incursions and attacks by unidentified armed groups. Indeed, the region has suffered incursions and attacks by fighters of the Boko Haram sect from neighboring Nigeria.

In addition to these internally displaced persons, OCHA reports that in August, "211 new asylum seekers were registered" at the Gourenguel transit center, not far from the Minawao refugee camp, the country's largest. These new registrations brought to 5,877 the number of asylum seekers registered since January 2023.

For Ocha, the growing number of asylum applications is due to the "persistence and sometimes even deterioration of the security situation" because of the activities of armed groups in the border zone. The asylum applicants include both Nigerian refugees established outside the camp, who say they are fleeing insecurity in their host localities in Cameroon, and people newly arrived from Nigeria, the report points out.  

L.A.